Keeping you safe
by livingfornow
Summary: Future Brittana fic. Brittany is in the army, Santana teaches at Mckinly High. What happens to Brittany while on her tour of duty? And do things go back to normal when she returns to Santana?
1. Chapter 1

**I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. EVERYTHING IS FICTION. HOPE YOU ENJOY READING IT.**

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CHAPTER 1:

The sand was kicked up in the air as the patrol cautiously made its way down the dirt track. The small village about a kilometre behind them had just been cleared of IED's and now the orders where to make the surrounding area safe for the afghan villagers. The last 6 months hadn't been easy on any of the soldiers of the bomb disposal unit. Especially its newest recruit Private Mike Chang. Mike's hand shot up into the air to signal to stop and drop. He was taking point today and so therefore had the metal detector and was listening intently through the ear phones.

"Got something sarge," came the shout from Mike.

"You know the drill Chang" replied Sergeant Sam Evans.

"You wanna see this tho sarge, I ain't never seen anything like it, let alone defused one," said Mike in a shaky voice.

"Pierce, you're up!" bellowed the sergeant.

Brittany slowly made her way upwards towards where Mike was stood. She took it slowly making sure she followed his path. "Take it easy Mike, I've got this. You can head back out of the blast radius." Mike shook his head and slowly crept back to where the rest of the patrol was now taking up a defensive stance. Brittany slowly bent down and laid on her front. She could see some of the IED quite clearly and began to slowly brush the sand and dirt away from the rest of it, making sure not to put too much pressure anywhere and trigger the explosion. She'd seen an IED like this on her last tour, they weren't that common and very clearly expertly made. Somebody obviously wanted to cause serious damage. "Better back it up sarge, this thing is loaded," shouted Brittany.

"Right you are corporal," replied the sergeant, "Right guys, back it up" ordered Sam.

The patrol slowly stood and shifted back a few hundred metres as ordered, moving together and covering every inch around them like a well oiled machine. Always being on alert for insurgents when outside friendly lines was the number one rule.

Ten minutes later Brittany had safely removed the top of the IED and was trying to work out which wire to cut to disarm it. The heat and weight of Brittany's gear was making her sweat profusely, along with the obvious nerves from the position she was in. All radio communication between her and the rest of the squad had stop to rule out the possibility of radio transmissions triggering the explosion. Brittany began to work through her routine of diffusing the IED; it had become second nature to her now. After thirty long minutes of lying in the sand it was time to cut the last wire. Brittany felt her heart rate increase... "This is it," she whispered to herself. She shut her eyes and thought of Santana. Taking a steady breathe and looking down at the wire, Brittany cut it...

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"Stop running!" shouted Santana over the dull hum of all the students in the corridor. In the 6 years since leaving McKinley High, Santana had gone to college, graduated and done her teaching qualification. She had been the drama and theatre teacher at McKinley for the past 2 years, and she loved every second of it. It was currently lesson change-over and she allowed her next class to enter the choir room for today's lesson.

"Right, take your seats please guys," said Santana. Once the class was quiet and settled the lesson began.

"Right today's lesson is all about showing serious emotion in your singing and acting and not going over the top. You need to learn when to be subtle and when to bring the power, so to speak. We're gonna try a couple of love scenes or songs, and a couple of angry or dark scenes/songs. Whichever takes your fancy? You're gonna have to pair up for this, but boy/girl pairings please guys!" Santana cast a sly glance at a few of her pupils who she knew wouldn't like this.

"Off you go, I'll give you half an hour to practice, and then we will show case."

Santana slowly made her way round the class to each pairing, trying to help them out or praising them. Generally just offering encouragement. The planned practice time ran a little over, but that didn't matter, she had the rest of the afternoon with this class. She had warm feeling inside her that some of these kids were gonna pull out all the stops today.

After all 10 pairings had performed there practiced piece, Santana made the class give there feedback for one another. She liked the kids to know it was constructive criticism and not them being told they were crap or anything like that. These kids were pretty good actually, several of them always got leads in the school musical and some of them were even considering doing theatre or some sort of production at college. Santana felt like her teaching was showing kids how to enjoy learning. She loved making lessons fun.

By the time 3:30pm rolled round, it had been a fairly fun and exciting afternoon. Now all that was left was the daily assembly at the end of the school day. Half the kids fell asleep; Figgins was still as boring as ever. The bell sounded and the class began to grab their bags and make their way out the choir room towards the gym. Santana was just walking towards the door when Quinn popped her head in.

"Hey," smiled Quinn.

"Right back at you Q, what are you doing here? Thought we weren't meeting till later?" replied Santana.

"We're not, but I just dropped in to give Puck his play book, he left it at home and needs it tonight for practice." That's right, Puck was now the football coach at McKinley, and he and Quinn were an item and had been for several years.

"Oh right, fancy keeping me company in assembly, Figgins bores me to tears!"

"Sure, why not, I ain't got anywhere better to be." And with that both friends made their way towards the gym, rounding up stray students on the way.

Santana's eyes rolled into the back of her head as Figgins made another pathetic announcement about some sort of school policy being violated. Santana sighed out loud as his drone of a voice continued to speak.

"And now, we have a special guest with us today," mumbled Figgins into the microphone. Santana looked over to Quinn and gave her the eyes that said 'sorry for putting you through this'. She heard the curtains being drawn back from the stage that had been put up. Then the usual footsteps of the guest speaker coming to the microphone. Well they are a bit odd to be foot-steps, thought Santana.

"Hey baby..."

Santana whipped her head towards the voice, she recognised that voice. There stood in the middle of the stage, on crutches, clutching a single daffodil in her hand was Brittany. There were murmurs all around the gym. Santana stood frozen, was she dreaming?

"Britt?"

"Surprise!" whispered Brittany into the microphone.

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**Thanks for reading guys...you reckon I should continue with this? Reviews would be greatly appreciated. x x x**


	2. Chapter 2

**I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING. THANKS FOR ALL YOUR REVIEWS ON THE FIRST CHAPTER! SORRY FOR THE LATE UPDATE, HOPEFULLY THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE UP QUICKER. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. **

**CHAPTER 2:**

Santana stood frozen to the spot before her brain finally clicked into gear and she raced down the stairs and through the students towards the stage. Brittany had a beaming smile on her face and couldn't stop looking into Santana's eyes. Santana flung herself at her lover and hugged her like it her life depended on it.

"Are you real?" whispered Santana, while burying her face into the crook of Brittany's neck.

"Yeah baby, I'm real," replied the blonde with a giggle, "God I've missed you so much San." She placed a sweet, gentle, meaningful kiss on her girlfriend's lips as she saw a tear roll down Santana's cheek.

The whole of the school gathered within the gym had stood to applaud the returning soldier and reunited couple. There were 'whoops' and wolf whistles echoing around the gym. Santana pulled back a little, "What happened? Why are you on crutches?" asked Santana.

"Ah, that's no biggy, I'll tell you later. This is for you," Brittany handed Santana the daffodil she was holding.

"It's beautiful, thank you," sniffled Santana. By now the tears were flowing freely down the latino's face.

"Just like you," whispered Brittany, "I love you so much!" She pulled Santana into her, giving her a kiss on the top of her head to reassure her. From the corner of her eye she saw Quinn and Puck making their way over to them both. Brittany slowly pulled away from her girlfriend and turned towards Quinn and Puck, giving them both a hug as they eventually reached her.

"Good to see you blondie," smiled Puck.

"I'm so glad your home safe, this one has been a nightmare to look after while you've been gone," said Quinn as she playfully poked Santana.

"Thanks guys, it's great to be home."

While all this was taking place, Figgins had declared that school was over for the day and dismissed the massed student body. Most of them decided to hang around to see what happened between the reunited couple.

The four friends slowly made their way off the stage and towards one of the exits, to head out to the car-park. Brittany hobbled along on her crutches, careful to keep the weight off of her left leg. Once outside they all made their way to Santana's Range rover. Puck opened the passenger side door for Brittany to climb in. She handed her crutches to Puck for a second and did what looked like a little jig to get into the car. Puck placed the crutches into the back and then came back to give Brittany another hug.

"I'll see you this weekend, remember the welcome back bbq."

"Sure thing Puckerman, can't wait."

"Hey San, have fun tonight," Puck said with a sly grin on his face and giving them both a cheeky wink.

"You don't change," hissed Quinn, giving him a playful push out of the way, "See you later girls. Don't do anything I wouldn't."

And with that Santana jump into the driver's seat and started the engine.

"See you later guys," bellowed Santana, while Brittany was trying desperately to hang out the window and wave goodbye.

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The drive home was spent with Brittany staring at Santana, with a tight grip on her hand. Being away for so long made her want to be in contact with her girlfriend even more. The car pulled up to a red light, and Santana turned towards Brittany and gently lent over the centre console to kiss her. It started off tender and sweet and as the brunette felt Brittany respond she began to deepen the kiss, they were about to get completely lost in each other when they heard a honk from the car behind. The smirked at each other and Santana pulled away to continue the drive home.

It was another 10 minutes of general chit-chat and loving glances until Santana parked the car in the driveway. There house was a modest little 3 bedroom, with a tiny front lawn next to the driveway. "I'll grab you bag from the back."

"Thanks San." Brittany grabbed her crutches and tried as best she could to graciously get out of the car. She hobbled her way up the front path and turned to see Santana just locking the car and making her way towards her. Brittany couldn't help but smile at how lucky she was. Santana caught her staring again, "You gonna be doing that a lot Britt? I might start to think there is something wrong with me."

"Yeah I think I will baby, I've missed you so much and I just want to look at you forever. You're perfect."

Santana opened the front door, dropped the bags in the front porch and turned to see Brittany stepping over the door-step. "This feels good," whispered Brittany.

"What does sweetie?"

"Ah, nothing baby, just talking to myself."

"So are you gonna tell me what happened to you now, and why you're on crutches?"

"Not yet San, we've got some catching up to do first." Brittany let her crutches dropped to the floor and limped over to where Santana was stood. She slide her arms around her waist and began to gently kiss the latino's neck.

"Don't think you're getting out of it by doing that Brittany S. Pierce, I want to know what happened! Why didn't anybody call and tell me you were injured?" said Santana, worry laced in her voice.

Brittany leaned back and looked at Santana, "I'll tell you everything San, I promise. Just when we've caught up," replied Brittany with a mischievous grin. The blonde slowly leaned in closer to Santana and felt Santana slowly give into her and their bodies melted into each other. Brittany crashed her lips onto Santana's, "I hate it when you grin at me like that, makes me do anything for you," said Santana between kisses.


End file.
